Daring (8 page)

“Excuse me, Miss Saunders, if that is indeed your name,” he said in a dry voice. “When you’re finished holding court to my household, do you think you could try to recall a few more details about my sister’s abduction?”

Maggie would have
taken offense at his tone if Ar
dath hadn’t leaped to her defense before she had the chance. Maggie was rapidly amending her earlier impression of the woman. Ardath might enjoy such unconventional pastimes as dancing about half-dressed in the rain, but she did have her good points. She was highly intelligent with strong maternal instincts. She believed in speaking her mind.

“Don’t you dare start upsetting her again,” Ardath said from the other side of the bed. “Upsetting her won’t make her remember. Just look at her, Connor. She has a bandage on her head. One makes exceptions for the injured.”

“Not to mention her bruised ribs,” the earl added in concern.

Dr. Sinclair turned from the dressing table, shaking a phial of powder. “She’s also got—”

“A hell of a lot of nerve,” Connor said loudly, finally losing his temper.

The echo of his voice resonated like thunder in the silence that fell over the room. The chambermaid, who had just brought up a warm comforter, thumped a pillow in disapproval. Ardath crossed her arms over her chest and gave Connor a shaming look.

Maggie put down the bouquet of flowers, watching Connor with a curious mixture of sympathy and foreboding. He was rather magnificent,
if you could overlook his beastl
y reputation and penchant for putting people in prison. He certainly knew how to command attention. She admired that in a man. It indicated character, and to be fair she had to concede she probably wasn’t seeing him at his best.

“I was about to say that she has a concussion.” Dr. Sinclair’s voice was curt. “There’s a knot on her head the size of an orange. If she does not remember everything that happened tonight, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

Connor gritted his teeth, staring at Maggie in open suspicion. “She broke into my house to steal a legal document—”

“Excuse us, my lord,” a polite male voice interrupted from the door. “The trays are here.”

“What trays?” Connor looked up with a scowl. “I don’t remember ordering any trays.”

Ardath motioned pleasantly to the man in the doorway. “Bring it in, Forbes.”

The butler opened the door all the way to admit a train of
servants pushing a trolley and carrying several trays. Connor stared in disbelief as Forbes swept past him to display a silver platter on the trolley for Ardath’s inspection. You’d have thought a royal banquet was in progress. He’d never dreamed his staff was capable of such service. He practically had to beg for a biscuit, but
then Connor had always consid
ered it one of life’s little ironies that his own employees and family didn’t seem to have a clue of his importance.

“Cook suggested this to revive our little patient, Mrs. Macmillan,” the butler said in a conspiratorial whisper.

Ardath nodded in appreciation. “And very nice too. Give Cook my compliments.”

The butler whipped off the domed cover with a flourish and sank a carving knife into the crisply browned skin of a roast turkey bulging with dressing. Connor shook himself out of his astonished trance. It was too much.

“That is a roast turkey, Ardath.”

She smiled, shaking her head. “Nothing escapes your notice, does it, Connor?” She glanced warmly at Maggie. “Dark or white meat, my dear?”

Maggie sat up, her blue eyes wide with incredulity. Was it possible, she wondered, to sneak an entire turkey back to Heaven’s Court? “Oh, I couldn’t—is that chestnut dressing?”

Connor raised his voice. “That is the roast turkey we were serving at the party.”

“Well, there isn’t going to be a party.” The earl slid his stool aside to let Forbes position a tray on Maggie’s lap. “Not with your sister abducted, and everyone too distraught to enjoy themselves. Everyone except her own brother, who is probably the reason she was abducted to begin with.”

Inspector Davies took out his pen and notebook. “A revenge abduction, you think, Lord Glenbrodie? Did anyone hear mention of a ransom note yet?”

A pair of maidservants bustled around the bed, forcing Connor back toward the door. “Mind you dinna bu
rn
yerself with this tea, miss.”

“Do you take sugar. Miss Saunders, or do you prefer bein’ called Lady Marguerite?”

Connor straightened abruptly. “Excuse me
—Lady
Marguerite?”

“Our Miss Saunders is the daughter of a French duke who was working as a secret agent against Napoleon,” Ardath explained quietly. “She was living in exile with an elderly Scottish aunt until a few years ago. She isn’t just anyone off the street.”

“Really, Ardath?” Connor said, pretending to look impressed. “I wonder how many other housebreakers in the city are actually deposed aristocrats and foreign spies in disguise? Could it be—should I check whether our chimney sweep is actually the King of Siam?”

Maggie released a sigh as Dr. Sinclair handed her a small glass of brown medicine. “I don’t think his lordship believes me. Not that he doesn’t have good cause. By the way, my lord, I don’t expect preferential treatment. You may call me Miss Saunders. Oh, this dressing is delicious. I hope everyone will forgive me for eating with such abandon. I haven’t had a meal like this in years. It must have cost a fortune.”

The earl and Ardath shared sympathetic looks. “You eat to your heart’s content, lassie,” he told her. “My nephew can certainly afford it.”

Connor was jostled back to the bed as the door opened to admit a maid bearing a platter of imported fruits and cheeses. A muscle ticking in his jaw, he watched Maggie make room on her tray for the light dessert course. Bending on the pretense of picking up a napkin, he said in an undertone, “Going into hibernation, are we?”

Maggie didn’t answer. How could she? She was stuffing a Spanish orange into her mouth like a greedy little squirrel. Hell, Connor wouldn’t be surprised if the bed gave under her weight. He couldn’t begin to guess where she would put it all, but she had been served enough food to sustain an army of Highlanders on a winter march.

But then suddenly she expelled a weary sigh and dropped her head back against the pillow. Her appetite apparently had been sated after a few hearty bites of fruit and cheese. Her delicate fingers were wrapped around the turkey drumstick she had yet to taste. Connor straightened slowly, a crosscurrent of emotions catching him unaware. Empathy, attraction, curiosity—all overlaid with a logic that told him she was a very clever, very pretty little fraud whose appearance tonight probably had nothing to do with Sheena’s abduction. He’d gone hungry more than once in his own life, and he couldn’t help putting himself in her place. Wouldn’t he have taken advantage of a similar situation?

“I want everyone else out of the room,” he said unexpectedly, cutting off the treacherous tendril of sympathy before it strangled his ability to think. “I want to be alone with Miss Saunders.”

E
veryone started to protest at once, except for Maggie, who was suddenly too exhausted to worry about the ramifications of surviving a private interrogation with the most powerful man in Scotland. She felt a stab of understanding at the stark emotion in his eyes. He wanted everything to make sense. So did she. Yet some force beyond their control had begun to weave the threads of their lives together whether they wished it or not. The image of the medieval tapestry took shape in her mind. The elements of danger and physical attraction, the lion and his lady in their unguarded intimacy.

Did that tapestry somehow foreshadow the future?

“I don’t think this is wise, Connor,” Ardath said in a quiet voice. “Not in your current frame of mind.”

“We want the lass to regain her memory,” the earl said, rising from his stool as if to protect the small figure in the bed. “We don’t want you frightening her out of her wits.”

Dr. Sinclair opened his mouth to add another objection, but apparently changed his mind at the rigid determination on Connor’s face.

“Out,” Connor said, pointing to the door. “Everyone—now.”

One didn’t argue with Connor Buchanan when he used that tone of voice, his Lord Advocate’s voice, the voice that condemned murderers and vindicated the innocent. Not even Ardath dared cross him when his voice dropped to that deceptively even baritone, when that hint of a Highlander’s deep Scottish burr crept into the cultured inflection. The few who’d been foolish enough to challenge Connor at such a time had learned to regret it.

They scurried from the room, mice escaping as the lion stirred, a victim trapped in his lair.

Slowly he turned to stare at Maggie.

Candlelight caught the deep hollows in his face, emphasized the masculine elegance of his frame. With an impatient gesture he loosened his starched collar and pulled
off his cravat. For countl
ess moments he stood at the foot of the bed, his blond hair loose on his wide shoulders as he surveyed the unmoving figure below him. Again he felt that annoying pull of attraction, the spell of sexual and emotional magic that he could not explain. This time he fought it, refusing to acknowledge that she stirred something dangerous inside him.

His face reflected none of his inner conflict; with a practiced detachment that had become second nature, he allowed nothing to soften his expression. In his considerable experience, he could intimidate most of the criminals he handled with a deliberate silence, a look, a few well-chosen words.

It would be child’s play to break down this girl.

M
aggie wished with all her heart that she were anywhere but in this room. Electricity crackled in the air, a primal force that mirrored the dark energy of the man who confronted her. She had seen the disdain in his eyes when she’d dared to eat his food, but she had lived in deprivation for too long to let pride overcome temptation, and she hadn’t wanted to hurt the others’ feelings. His family was kind.

He was not.

He loomed at the foot of the bed in condemning silence, as if he were looking through her. A stab of fear pierced her exhaustion, but she willed herself not to show it. Her head ached so badly that she could barely focus on his face. She wanted to close her eyes and pretend—

“You will look at me when I address you, Miss Saunders,” he said in a voice that compelled her to obey.

Her heart gave an apprehensive lurch as he moved to the side of the bed. Then he sat down, and all of a sudden she didn’t have to struggle to stay awake. Her senses started to clamor like a fire brigade. Alarming thoughts and impressions clanged like bells through her mind. What should she believe about him? Somewhere amidst all the horrifying rumors there must be at least a grain of truth.

“What have you done with Hugh?” she asked suddenly, making a futile effort to balance her tray and scoot to the other side of the bed.

Connor stretched out across the comforter, deliberately holding her captive with the weight of his body. “Your partner in crime is downstairs with my sister’s husband and the constable. The last I heard he was trying to convince them that he’d wandered into my house by mistake looking for a lost cat.”

“Which is the absolute truth.” Maggie pounced on the alibi without blinking an eye. “That stupid tomcat is always running off, and poor granny so attached to the ugly old thing. He must have hidden in your house to escape the storm.”

Connor’s voice was tart. “I believe your partner claimed it was a pregnant cat that belonged to his crippled sister.”

“His sister’s cat ran off too?” Maggie said in feigned astonishment. “That old tomcat must have lured her away with him. Male cats are just like that, my lord. Totally amoral and—”

“On furthering questioning, your friend admitted there was no cat, amoral or otherwise. It was Jamie Munro’s confession he was after.”

Maggie’s face crumpled under his unwavering stare. “I knew I should have come alone,” she whispered, looking down at her lap in surrender.

Connor’s gaze flickered over her downbent head. “You mentioned Munro yourself in the courtyard.”

“I wanted to get the confession you forced out of helpless Daft Jamie yesterday morning.” Temper darkened her eyes to indigo as she raised her face to his. “It wasn’t right, making a helpless old man admit to a murder he didn’t have either the wits or wherewithal to commit.”

“What,” he asked, enunciating each word like the crack of a bullwhip, “were you going to do with that confession once you got hold of it?”

Maggie’s fingers tightened around the drumstick. She was taken aback by the absolute lack of understanding in his eyes. “Well, I’m not absolutely sure. I think the plan was to convince an honest criminal lawyer to take on Jamie’s case out of the goodness of his heart.”

“And why was a girl sent to execute such a brilliant plan?” he asked with mild contempt.

Maggie felt her temper rising again. “Because I was the only one in Heaven’s Court with the aristocratic background to blend into your party, in the event Hugh needed a
distraction.”

Connor studied her with unnerving intensity. “You were a distraction, all right,” he said crisply. “You distracted me into making a damned fool of myself from the moment I met you. Furthermore, that confession was never meant to fall into anyone else’s hands.”